Yoga That Leaves Even Weightlifters more flexible

In the comedy ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine,’ a well-built Terry Crews tells his colleagues that yoga is not hard at all, and then pulls a muscle and cannot walk for the next few days.

At a new boutique gym in Nairobi’s Westlands, Mom3ntum fitness, the trainers are encouraging traditional gym goers to complement their workouts with vinyasa yoga. In the yoga class, even body-builders break a sweat.

“What we are doing is trying to push people who would not traditionally do yoga and show them the benefits,” says Sahil Kakkar, the co-founder and director of Mom3ntum.

Vinyasa yoga is a form of yoga that links breathing to movement. Mr Kakkar says it works on many body muscles than lifting weights or using gym machines.

Every movement has a component of breath associated with it. For instance, with the sun salutation, a cornerstone of vinyasa yoga practice, an individual would inhale as they extend their arms and then exhale as they bring them down.

Radhika Thakkar, an instructor at Mom3ntum who has been teaching for 16 years agrees that vinyasa yoga complements other exercises.

“When exercising, most people tend to focus on one or two muscles but in yoga, you work more. It is complementary to many exercises, like running where regular runners tend to have very tight hamstrings,” she says.

Both Mr Kakkar and Ms Thakkar say that when they started yoga, they believed the common misconception that it was all about stretching and slow relaxation.

“People have a misunderstanding that it is just for flexibility and mobility. A lot of guys say ‘Oh! I can do that’. But some weightlifters have done one or two yoga classes and they walk out of the class sweating more than anyone,” he says.

Ms Thakkar adds that she has worked with inflexible body-builders. They cannot do simple hand stretches yet they can stand on their hands in seconds.

Yoga offers gym-goers a chance to use their whole bodies, to flare up muscles they had earlier not, get more movement and support themselves better and in a safer way. It also gives them a chance to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

“After yoga, people always say ‘I am sore in places I did not know there were muscles,” says the trainer.

For Ms Thakkar, what attracted her most to yoga is how it builds mental wellness.

“The movements, mind and every kind of conscious process of the body is integrated so there’s this cool meditative experience,” she says.

Although traditionally yoga prepared the body to meditate, now people do it because of its physical benefits of ridding the body of toxins and toning it.

Sometimes, yoga trainers have to allay concerns that the exercise is a religion.

“Yoga is not a religion, it is just a practice that helps individuals separate the fluff that does not need to be around,” says Ms Thakkar, adding that her students have confided in her that the exercises help them go through a difficult breakup or a divorce and get a community after moving to a new city.

In a vinyasa yoga class, everybody’s journey is different but the trainer says that after six to eight sessions over two months, beginners can start to feel good.

“I always remind people that there is never a goal. Your body will go there if it needs to or if it wants to,” she says.

Beginners can be very self-conscious in a vinyasa yoga class but Ms Thakkar says in most cases, more seasoned students are too absorbed in their exercises to look around and notice.

“The first few classes can feel very intellectual because you are thinking about how to use the body muscles in a different way,” she says.

“It is a big misnomer that people think that they can’t do yoga because they’re not flexible enough. Actually, there is no prerequisite for yoga,” she says, adding that the most common problem for beginners is forgetting to breathe.

Ms Thakkar, who has taught in New York, Washington DC and Mumbai says Nairobi matches the rest of the geographies in the way that different types of yoga are offered including power, vinyasa, bikram, hatha and yen yoga. She is particularly excited about Lamu Yoga Festival where people from all over East Africa practice.

inyayieka@ke.nationmedia.com